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Up to 20,000 migrants and asylum seekers could be turfed onto the streets in Italy because of a shortfall in funding for the country’s overstretched reception centres, the interior ministry has warned.

A budget shortfall of 60 million euros could lead to the closing of some reception centres within weeks.

Migrants would then have to fend for themselves but would also be free to try to head towards the wealthier countries of northern Europe, including Britain.

The interior ministry warned that having so many migrants wandering around Italy “could create problems of public order because of the social tensions that it risks generating.”

Around 132,000 migrants and refugees have been rescued in the Mediterranean and brought to Italy this year alone, having set out in flimsy dinghies and leaking fishing boats from the coasts of Libya and Egypt.

They have joined tens of thousands who remain in the country after arriving by the same means last year.

In total, Italy is paying for the accommodation and upkeep of 160,000 migrants and asylum seekers, mostly in government-run facilities but also in privately-managed centres.

It costs the Italian state between 25 and 45 euros a day to feed and shelter each migrant.

They are living in centres across Italy, from Turin and Milan in the industrial north to small towns in Tuscany and struggling southern regions such as Sicily, Basilicata and Calabria.

“There have never been such serious delays in payment (to migrant facilities) and beyond the very high risk of no longer being able to provide assistance to asylum seekers, it also poses problems for the staff of these centres,” Giuseppe Guerini, president of Confcooperative, a federation of NGOs, told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“For more than six months, members of staff have not received their salaries. We’re at the point of collapse.”

Angelino Alfano, the interior minister, admitted that there were funding problems but said his hands were tied until more money was released by the Italian treasury.

In the last two years, the vast majority of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from the North African coast came from either West African countries such as Nigeria, Senegal and Gambia, or Horn of Africa states such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

It takes at least six months for a migrant’s asylum application to be processed.

If an asylum request is turned down, the migrant is supposed to be flown back to his or her home country.

But that process has been impeded by a lack of bilateral agreements between Italy and the countries from where migrants originate.

Britain has been helping Rome with forging better relations with countries such as Nigeria, with London drawing on its long history of relations with its former colonies in Africa.

Earlier this month, a UN representative warned that at least 235,000 migrants and refugees were on the coast of Libya waiting to cross the Mediterranean to Italy.

"We have on our lists 235,000 migrants who are just waiting for a good opportunity to depart for Italy, and they will do it," said Martin Kobler, the head of a UN mission that is seeking to bring peace and stability to the North African country, which is divided by rival governments, militias and Islamic State.